(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for aiding configuration management of a computer system, wherein designing the physical layout typically involves processing units, input/output units and other pieces of equipment composing the computer system and the management also generally involves generation of configuration parameters required for an operating system of the computer system.
(2) Description of the Related Art
When installing a new computer system comprising a set of central processing units, a set of input/output units and a set of other pieces of equipment, or when it is necessary to add new equipment to or to move some equipment from an existing computer system, the following jobs need to be done.
(1) Determine a layout within an installation site. PA1 (2) Check whether the capacities of the power supplies in the installation site are sufficient or insufficient. PA1 (3) Check whether or not the cooling capacity of the air-conditioner in the installation site is sufficient or insufficient. PA1 (4) Prepare a manual of how to connect cables of power supplies for each piece of equipment and carry out the cabling work. PA1 (5) Prepare a manual of how to connect signal cables among pieces of equipment and carry out the cabling work. PA1 (6) Determine configuration parameters required by the OS (operating system) and generate a system based on the configuration parameters. PA1 (1) A process to reflect the device configuration of the computer system in the OS. PA1 (2) A process to define optional functions of the OS and include processing programs for the optional functions in the OS. PA1 (1) Miscommunication is likely to occur at every phase of the jobs. PA1 (2) Detailed information on details of equipment characteristics such as types of connectable cables is limited to knowledge levels of individual people in charge of the jobs. PA1 (3) A dedicated system engineer is required for each work unit or at each customer site. PA1 determining proper locations for installing pieces of equipment composing a computer system through use of a drawing of an installation area displayed in a display screen and interactive operations between a user and the computer system; PA1 inspecting cables connecting the pieces of equipment after their installation locations have been determined for connection appropriateness, in response to a command issued by the user; and PA1 generating configuration defining parameters to be used by the operating system of the computer system from characteristics of the pieces of equipment after the cable connection has passed inspection. PA1 displaying a drawing of an installation area, PA1 displaying figures of pieces of equipment specified by the user on an installation area on the drawing specified by the user, or PA1 moving the figure of a piece of equipment specified to be moved to another location, and PA1 checking whether or not the moved figure overlaps figures of existing pieces of equipment at other locations. The movement of equipment from an installation area to another one is accomplished by using a multi-window function. A piece of equipment overlapping another one is displayed, when such an overlap is detected. When the layout of the pieces of equipment has been determined, an apparatus attribute values table including characteristics of the pieces of equipment and an environment attribute values table including characteristics of installation areas are created.
The jobs described above are part of the work to manage the operation of the computer system and, in particular, pertain to the category of non-steady operation jobs. Normally, these jobs are the responsibility of a specialist known as a system engineer. In a large-scale batch center or on-line center, the number of pieces of equipment composing a computer system is several hundreds to several thousands and there are normally five to six resident system engineers assigned to a computer-system site.
When it is necessary to install a new computer system or to move the installation of some equipment from an already existing computer system, first of all, the system engineer in charge of the jobs determines installation locations of the equipment by trial and error using scaled-down drawings of the installation locations and the equipment prior to the creation of an equipment-layout drawing. The system engineer then checks whether the capacities of the power supplies and the cooling capacities of the air-conditioners at the installation site are sufficient or insufficient. In recent years, these jobs can be carried out by using tabular-calculation software.
In order for the people in charge of the jobs to be able to perform the connection work to connect cables between power supplies and equipment and signal cables among pieces of equipment, manuals describing connection instructions for the power-supply and signal cables must be prepared. These connection-specification manuals include equipment-layout drawings showing lines additionally drawn thereon for denoting power-supply and signal cables. Furthermore, in order to make it easy to install the equipment, manuals describing instructions for these kinds of work must also be prepared. These work-specification manuals describe instructions regarding the installation locations of the equipment, connections among pieces of equipment, the type and length of each cable and units to which cables are to be connected.
While these jobs are being done, preparation for completing the OS is needed. The preparation to complete the OS is known as system generation comprising the following processes:
In particular, the process (1) is referred to as I/O generation (I/O GEN) whereas the processes (1) and (2) are called the system generation (SYSGEN), a generic name for both the processes.
In the I/O generation, attributes of all pieces of equipment composing the computer system and connection/relation among the pieces of equipment need to be described clearly. For this reason, in the system generation, descriptions of parameters for defining the system configuration are created and then entered into the computer system. At the same time, drawings showing the configuration of the connection among the pieces of equipment (known as logical-connection drawings) need to be created, maintained and controlled. Theses jobs were mostly done manually in the past.